Justin, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus (1886). pp. v-viii.
Notice of the life and writings of Justin

NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JUSTIN.
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As Justin is not properly an author, but an abridger, we shall first give our
attention to the writer whom he abridged.

All that is certainly known of the personal history of Trogus Pompeius is,
that he was a Roman by birth;1 that his ancestors
were of the Vocontii, a people of Italy; that his grandfather, Trogus Pompeius,
was presented with the right of citizenship by Pompey during the war with
Sertorius; that his uncle was an officer of cavalry under Pompey, in the war
with Mithridates; and that his father served in the army under Julius Caesar,
and was afterwards his private secretary.2 Trogus
himself must, therefore, have flourished under Augustus. The last event that he
appears to have recorded is the restoration of the Roman standards by the
Parthians.

He wrote a history in forty-four books, which he entitled Historiae
Philippicae, because, as is supposed, his chief design in writing it was to
relate the origin, progress, decline, and extinction of the Macedonian monarchy,
and especially the achievements of Philip and his son. But he allowed himself,
like Herodotus and other historians, to indulge in such large digressions and
excursions, that it was regarded by many as a Universal History, and is
represented, in some manuscripts, |vi as
containing totius mundi origines et terrae situs, a character to which it
had no right.

The first six books comprised the period antecedent to Philip, in which an
account was given of the Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians, Scythians, Athenians,
and Lacedaemonians; the history of Macedonia was commenced in the seventh book,
and continued, in combination with other matters, to the overthrow of Andriscus,
the Pseudo-Philippus, in the thirty-third. The prologi, or arguments,
which we have of all the books, similar to the epitomes of the lost books of
Livy, were first published by Bongarsius.

He seems to have taken his materials from the Greek historians.3
His title appears to have been suggested by the Philippica of Theopompus,
a voluminous work, of which Stephanus de Urbibus 4
cites the fifty-seventh book.

Whatever speeches he inserted were in the oblique form, for he blamed Livy
and Sallust for giving long direct speeches in their histories. 5
He is praised by Justin for his eloquence; vir priscae eloquentiae;6
and Vopiscus 7 ranks his style with those of
Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus.

A treatise of Trogus, de Animalibus, is mentioned by Charisius, 8
and Trogus is quoted as an authority by Pliny in several passages of his Natural
History; and this Trogus is generally supposed to be the same as Trogus the
historian.

A writer named Trogus is also twice cited by Priscian, in his fifth and sixth
books, but whether he is the Trogus of Justin, is uncertain. |vii

The epitome that Justin made of the large work of Trogus, has often been
supposed the cause that the original was lost.

Who or what JUSTIN was, we are left in ignorance; we know not even what name
he had besides Justinus, for though one manuscript entitles him Justinus
Frontinus, and another M. Junianus Justinus, the other manuscripts give him only
one name.

From the words Imperator Antonine, which occur in the preface in the
editions of Aldus and others, he has been often said to have lived in the reign
of that emperor; but those words are now generally thought to have been
interpolated by some, who, like Isidore and Jornandes, confounded him with
Justin Martyr.9 From an expression in the eighth
book, where Greece is said to be etiam nunc et viribus et dignitate orbis
terrarum princeps, it has been conjectured that he flourished under the
Eastern emperors; but such conjecture is groundless, for the words merely refer
to the period of which the author is writing, and may be, indeed, not Justin's,
but Trogus's.

His style, however, in which occur the words adunare, impossibilis,
praesumtio, opinio for "report," and other words and phrases of
inferior Latinity, show that he must have lived some considerable time after the
Augustan age. Such phraseology could not have been found in the pages of Trogus.
But Justin could not have been later than the beginning of the fifth century, as
he is mentioned by St. Jerome.10

That he was not a Christian, is proved, as Vossius remarks, by the ignorance
which he manifests of the Jewish Scriptures;11 for
he could not, assuredly, have copied Trogus's vagaries without bestowing some
correction upon them. He has been censured for not making a more regular
abridgment |viii of his author's work,
but without justice; for he intended only to extract or abbreviate such portions
as he thought more likely than others to please the general reader.

His composition is animated, and in general correct, but not of the highest
order of merit. His peculiarities of phraseology are carefully specified by
Wetzel in his prolegomena, though he has omitted to remark his constant
use of the conjunction quasi in his narratives and descriptions.

It is observed by Dr. Robertson,12 that "we
cannot rely on Justin's evidence, unless when it is confirmed by the testimony
of other ancient authors." The remark ought rather to be transferred to
Trogus, whom Justin seems faithfully to have followed, and who seems, indeed, to
have been a writer of sufficient credulity, as his account of Habis, in his
forty-fourth book, may serve to show. But there is no historian, as Vopiscus 13
says, that does not tell something false, and Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, and
Trogus, alike exhibit passages not proof against strict examination.

The best editions of Justin are those of Bongarsius, Paris, 1581; of
Graevius, Lugd. Bat., 1683, which has been several times reprinted; of Hearne,
Oxon, 1703; of Gronovius, Lugd. Bat. 1719, 1760; of Fischer, Lips. 1757; and of
Wetzel, Lipa. 1806, reprinted in Lemaire's Bibliothèque Classique, 1823.

The oldest English Version is that of Arthur Goldinge, 1564, and the next
that of Robert Codrington, 1654, both of whom had but an imperfect knowledge of
the language of their author. There have since appeared translations by Thomas
Brown, 1712; by Nicolas Bayley, 1732; by Clarke, 1732; and by Turnbull, 1746,
the last being the most readable performance, but not always faithful to the
sense.